. . . the watchword here is intelligence. One always feels with this artist that he has really thought in advance about what he is playing, that one is hearing the workings of an astute mind . . . Three cheers for Daniel Hope for making a high-profile Vivaldi release without recourse to "The Four Seasons" . . . the disc he has produced is surely a deeper way of signalling his love and understanding of the Red Priest . . . Hope and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe play them with the clarity and ensemble precision of a top-class Baroque orchestra, and with their spritely bowing and general avoidance of vibrato . . . There seems little doubt as to the kind of performances Hope has been influenced by, and the "Baroque" feel is enhanced by a generous and active continuo section which even runs to a harp and a lirone. What results is Vivaldi that is enjoyable and without quirks . . . guest soloist Anne Sofie von Otter catches the mood superbly. This is a disc made with love and intelligence -- a powerful combination.

The instruments may be modern but Daniel Hope's second baroque recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is as extravagantly decorated and pungent a performance of Vivaldi's concertos as any by Andrew Manze. Though the continuo line is fussily orchestrated in the Sonata "La Follia", you can't fault the dynamism. Add in a seductive performance of "Sovvente il sole" by Anne Sofie von Otter and Hope's . . . Vivaldi is strangely addictive.

Record Review /
Anna Picard,
Independent (London) / 02. November 2008

. . . Hope and this orchestra never do the obvious. The Mendelssohn wasn¿t obvious -- apart from playing the piece from an unfamiliar edition, the musicians¿ lyrical gusto made the release unmissable. This Vivaldi release equally has freshness stamped all over it . . . his choice of concertos and instrumentalists, and the dancing lilt of his unfussy ornamentations, produce textures of unusual subtlety and variety. Hope, as they say, springs eternal. Apart from the soloist¿s panache, there¿s another key ingredient in the disc¿s charms: the diverse continuo group . . . Whatever the instruments, the sounds are airy, matching the lightweight pizzazz of Hope¿s violin and the compact COE forces . . . even in fury mode Hope¿s team never drive the music too hard, and in largo movements their graceful abilities sigh and wink in sync with the music. Nothing could be more intimate or delicate than the largo textures in RV 273, or more mysterious than the pause for thought in the middle of the sea-storm concerto, RV 253. And it¿s not just instrumental variety. There¿s a human voice too: Anne Sofie von Otter¿s mezzo-soprano. She glides with lissom gravity though an aria, with accompanying violin filigree, from a recently rediscovered serenata, Andromeda Liberata. Von Otter is a welcome presence . . . in this outstanding, kaleidoscopic collection.

Record Review /
Geoff Brown,
The Times (London) / 07. November 2008

In the concertos Daniel Hope reveals himself as an ardent Vivaldian . . . Throughout his recital Hope puts thoughts and words into action with dynamic playing that pays more than lip-service to the example provided by historically informed performances . . . [von Otter]: Her performance, partnered by Hope's wistful violin playing, is beguiling.

There is a percussive edge to it all, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe bumping down on the beat with such determination that the whole thing begins to pulsate as if on a chemically induced rave . . . Von Otter singing 'Sovvente il sole' from Vivaldi's "Andromeda Liberata" is the undoubted highlight of this release.

Record Review /
Marc Rochester,
International Record Review (London) / 01. January 2009

With sharply clipped articulation, intoxicating rhythmic verve (energized by occasional ornamental patterns), and a wide range of textural backlighting, they've given the whole thing [op. 5] an "extreme makeover" that still allows it to sound idiomatic, though in the sense of the term as we've been taught to understand it by dashing performances like this one . . . Enthusiastically recommended.

Record Review /
Robert Maxham,
Fanfare (Tenafly, NJ) / 01. July 2009

Hope is clearly a musician of remarkable intelligence with a really winning way of talking about music . . .

Daniel Hope plays Vivaldi

Daniel Hope has many good reasons for the creation of this album, one being that as a teenager he often played the Concerto grosso in D minor, RV 565 with his mentor Yehudi Menuhin. Daniel spent much of his childhood in Menuhin's house (his mother was Menuhin's secretary, later his manager of 25 years), but it was only when he reached his teens that the great violinist recognised the boy's talent and invited Hope to perform together with him. Hope's most recent stimulus came from his collaboration with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with whom he has worked for several years, and with whom he recorded the Urtext version of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in his debut release for Deutsche Grammophon. Ever since childhood Hope has marvelled at Vivaldi's compositional virtuosity in his concertos. In this interview he explains why.

What is the fascination of Vivaldi's music for you?

Daniel Hope: Vivaldi's music has absolutely everything that you could want. It is an explosion of melody, of drama, of passion, of expression. It just takes hold of you and it doesn't let you go. You feel you're on a roller-coaster ride and yet there are moments of such poignancy, such beauty, such delicacy. The man was a poet: TheFour Seasons are not just wonderful works of music, but also have inspiring poetry that is sometimes recited and connects the words to the music. There were very few composers that were able to illustrate music in the way that Vivaldi did, as he has done in the pieces that are on this album. There is an operatic quality to Vivaldi's expression; but his music also possesses a chamber-music quality and intimacy. He must have been the most extraordinary man and I think he would have been almost impossible to get along with. By all accounts he was incredibly arrogant and fun loving, and he knew exactly how to promote himself. He was arguably the most commercially savvy artist of his day, and was as famous as a rock star. Wherever he went, people adored him and his music. And yet he died penniless in Vienna, a broken man. What an incredible life!

This is the first time that you have recorded Vivaldi. Why have you waited so long?

DH: There is a great misconception that Vivaldi's music is easy to play, or that it's easy to put together. That's just not the case. His music is technically extremely challenging; from what we know, he was an amazing violinist who dazzled his listeners. There are reports of people writing to their friends after a concert that they'd never heard a violin sound like that, or that they'd never heard technical passages played quite so brilliantly. It is very difficult just to play the notes of some of his concertos! On top of that, there is a misconception that Vivaldi's music is sometimes shallow, perhaps because of the sheer volume of his output, but I really can't agree with that. For me, Vivaldi has great depth and it has taken me years of playing, thinking about, and living with his music before taking the important step of recording it.

What is the concept of the album?

DH: This album is intended to show not only how wonderful Vivaldi is, but also that there is much more to his music than The Four Seasons. Now, I have nothing against The Four Seasons: I love them. They are amazing pieces, and I play them many times in a year and certainly wouldn't want to live without them. But there are also hundreds of other fantastic works which Vivaldi wrote, and by delving into these, one uncovers a whole new sound world. Some of his late concertos are far ahead of their time. They are so inspiring and have led me on a journey of discovery to find out more about this amazing man. I also wanted to show how the violin is represented in its different forms. One is the Baroque violin concerto where the violinist is the traditional soloist. But we have also recorded an extremely beautiful aria from one of Vivaldi's recently discovered operas where I accompany a great singer and friend, Anne Sofie von Otter, on the violin. Then there is La follia, which is an incredible dance with variations on a simple but moving theme. In fact La follia was so popular that it caused a sensation in Europe with the result that many composers took up the theme - Corelli was one, a few years before Vivaldi - and wrote their own variations. With La follia we have a piece for two violins and a continuo group. Here I was lucky to work with a young Italian violinist called Lorenza Borrani. She is an amazing virtuoso: it was as if we were almost duelling together when we were improvising passages. Who could play faster? Who could play slower? Who could play louder or softer? And who could improvise more spontaneously? Improvisation is sometimes forgotten about nowadays, but it was fundamental to Baroque music. It was required of every musician that he improvise on a number of passages and phrases in a piece. For example, a continuo cellist never just played the bass line as written. Any cellist who did so would have been regarded as very dull and unimaginative. The great cellists of the time used the written part merely as the starting point of their accompaniment. During the 19th century the long tradition of improvisation, however, came to an end. In this recording we attempted to return to this practice.

And you have also recorded the wonderful La tempesta di mare . . .

DH: La tempesta di mare is the most amazing piece, in which Vivaldi shows how he was able to conjure up the elements of nature - in this case a storm at sea - through music using only a small group of string players and a violin. You have the feeling that you are in the middle of the sea that is very calm at the beginning, then has tumultuous waves with huge explosions of sound, and then returns to relative serenity. Vivaldi certainly knew how to expand the music and make people listen. For me, La tempesta di mare is one of his greatest works, as good as any of The Four Seasons.

What are your feelings about historical performance practice?

DH: There's a huge debate nowadays about historical performance, or authentic performance, or period performance (there are all sorts of words for it), and it's a particularly interesting as well as fiercely debated subject. What it basically means is that there is a movement that has existed since the 1960s, of musicians and scholars to research and perform works of classical music, ranging from Medieval to the Romantic era, in ways similar to how they may have been performed when they were originally written. Whilst most of our string instruments come from the 17th or 18th century, some elements of these instruments have been modified. One such example is the use of strings. If you are going to be “authentic" in your approach to Baroque music, you should use gut strings and a Baroque bow, and you should approach the sound and phrasing differently. However, this is only one part of the argument, which is far more complex than only using different strings. Over the past 40 years we have had the great fortune to learn an enormous amount about how music was played, or how we think it was played. For this recording we made a very conscious decision not to play on period instruments but to use “modern" instruments (again, many of these were actually built in Vivaldi's time), strings and bows; but at the same time, we tried to research, develop and integrate as much information as possible from the period-instrument movement. Roger Norrington once said something to me which I have never forgotten: “Historical performance (or historically informed performance, as he likes to call it) is in the mind and not in the hardware." For me, it's really about being historically informed, about what's possible, and then making a decision. In my case: to move on, but with all the glorious heritage of the past inside you.How did you conceive the basso continuo?

DH: On the recording there is an extraordinary conglomeration of instruments that we call basso continuo or continuo group. The continuo not only provides the bass but much of the imagination inside the music. Often the continuo was only a harpsichord; this was certainly the case with modern performers over the last 50 or 60 years who were not acquainted with historical performance practice. But since then we've learned that a composer or performer would add many other instruments to create different effects. On this recording, therefore, we use not just the harpsichord played by Kristian Bezuidenhout, one of the finest keyboard specialists around today but a whole array of amazing instruments, some of which I'd never played with or even seen before! One is called the lirone, which very few players in this world know how to play. It's the strangest looking instrument - a cross between a cello, a double bass and a gamba, with many strings, and it produces a truly beautiful sound almost like an accordion. Its beautiful timbre blended wonderfully. We also have a Baroque guitar, and a Baroque harp. All these instruments go into the make up of the musical structure. Vivaldi's music is so rich: by putting these instruments here and there, it's a bit like adding salt and pepper to what's already a delicious meal. It just changes a phrasing or a colouring here and there. I am delighted that we had such wonderful Baroque specialists to provide us with a stunning continuo band.6/2008